Assessing the Plausibility of Measurement-Based Auralization of Sound Transmission through Walls

Himmelein H, Köber F, Pörschmann C. Assessing the Plausibility of Measurement-Based Auralization of Sound Transmission through Walls. In: AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games. Audio Engineering Society; 2026. Paper 10312. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23274

@inproceedings{Himmelein2026_23274,
  author = {Himmelein, Hendrik and Köber, Florian and Pörschmann, Christoph},
  title = {{Assessing the Plausibility of Measurement-Based Auralization of Sound Transmission through Walls}},
  booktitle = {AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games},
  note = {Paper 10312},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23274}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Assessing the Plausibility of Measurement-Based Auralization of Sound Transmission through Walls
AU  - Himmelein, Hendrik
AU  - Köber, Florian
AU  - Pörschmann, Christoph
T2  - AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
M1  - Paper 10312
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23274
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - In building acoustics, modeling and auralizing sound transmission through walls is a relevant area of research related to residential well-being and workplace productivity. While most existing studies use auralization methods that focus on accurately reproducing the spectrum and amplitude of the sound transmission in accordance with ISO standards, almost no studies have explicitly tried to evaluate the perceptual quality of wall transmission auralization. To address this, the present study applies the plausibility paradigm to validate a measurement-based auralization approach for further psychoacoustic experiments on residential well-being. Binaural Room Impulse Responses (BRIRs) were measured for three loudspeakers placed in adjacent rooms to a central listening room. In a listening test, participants listened to both real and virtual stimuli and were asked after each presentation to judge whether the stimulus was perceived as real or virtual. Based on these responses, the overall plausibility of the auralization was evaluated. Due to the absence of visual cues, the comparably low sound pressure levels, the reduced signal-to-noise ratio, and the diffuse radiation characteristic of the source, participant judgments were close to the guessing rate, resulting in high plausibility scores for all adjacent rooms. These findings suggest that auralization of wall transmission using BRIRs can be used as an appropriate method for psychoacoustic research on residential well-being, without the need for complex physical simulations.
ER  -